August 10--Little house on the prairie

We are up in the mountains for about 5 days. It is lovely up here. The weather is just below 80 during the day, and down to the 40s at night. Perfect.

Here is the cabin we are staying in. It is just up the hill from the river, and from a nice hiking trail that follows an old railroad grade. I used to come up to this area a lot when I was a kid, but haven't stayed up here for more than 40 years. My neighbor Larry, who is watering our plants while we are gone, comes up here every year. tt

The Stanislaus river. The trail we took today follows the river, and we sat near it a few times. Malida even took her shoes off and waded around in it. She reports it was very cold.

Malida takes a break on the trail. We weren't really tired, but it was so perfect out that we felt compelled to enjoy it as much as possible.

We came home and took a nap out on the deck. After we got up I made dinner--grilled butterflied leg of lamb that had been marinating for a couple of days, a couple ears of corn, and some small yams that we bought at a roadside stand on the way up here.

After dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood. There are some awesome places up here, from small cabins to luxury estates. The place down the street is selling for 2.5 million.

Something more within our price range. lol probably not. Everywhere we go, we talk about moving there, but we never do.

We aren't supposed to have internet up here, but there is a super good Verizon signal, which means personal hotspot. And Livejournal. In spite of that I have finished one book and am well into a second.

We were just visited again by a very friendly and curious hummingbird. Life is good.